Valve for filling bottles,containers and the like and method



Aug. 12, 1969 Filed A rn 25, 1966 E E. ROBBINS 3,460,590

VALVE FOR FILLING BOTTLES, CONTAINERS AND THE LIKE AND METHOD 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 I'll,

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M/l/ENTGR E. E. ROBBINS W A T TORNEYS Aug. 12, 1969 E. E. ROBBINS 3,460,590 VALVE FOR FILLING BOTTLES, CONTAINERS AND THE 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 LIKE AND METHOD med Mai-i125. 1966 4 MILK).

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INVENTOR E E ROBBINS A T 7'0RNE rs United States Patent 3,460,590 VALVE FOR FILLING BOTTLES, CONTAINER AND THE LIKE AND METHOD Eldred E. Robbins, Winston-Salem, N.C., assignor to Phillips Petroleum Company, a corporation of Delaware Filed Apr. 25, 1966, Ser. No. 545,065 Int. Cl. B67c 3/60 U.S. Cl. 141-7 11 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE Method and apparatus for filling a bottle with a fluid, the apparatus having a downwardly discharging valve body or stem which is flared and angled to cause downwardly flowing liquid in pinching thereon to flow upwardly into and to fill the neck of a container being filled so that the fluid will flow uniformly downwardly around the wall of the container without splashing, dripping or foaming. In a now preferred embodiment rectilinearly and longitudinally extending vanes are provided along the valve body or stem.

This invention relates to filling containers, bottles and the like. In one concept of the invention, it relates to a substantially vertically disposed and vertically, reciprocatingly operated valve for filling fluid into bottles, containers and the like, so dimensioned, configured and arranged with respect to the bottle or container to be filled that when inserted into the neck of the container or bottle to be filled with fluid from a storage vessel abovethe container or bottle, it will be operating to convey the fluid, say milk, upwardly into and to fill substantially completely the bottle neck causing the fluid to flow substantially, on the whole, outwardly radially over and onto the bottle neck wall and then downwardly on the wall of the bottle uniformly around the peripheral portions of the bottle thus to fill the same without splashing or foaming. In another concept of the invention, the valve is of the type in which there is provided an axial bore through which air in the bottle is continuously removed from the otherwise sealed bottle upwardly through the bore, the lower end of the valve body, which normally is flared and tapered and which forms the sealing seat in closed position of the valve, being so sized and angled that the fluid, say milk, running downwardly around the valve stem or body will be caused to fill the neck of the bottle above the valve bottom and to flow radially outwardly onto the inner wall of the bottle and then downwardly on the wall thereof at the periphery of the bottle substantially uniformly thus avoiding splashing, foaming or dripping from the valve and the like disturbance or turbulence in the milk bottle and/or the formation of a bulb at the face of the valve body over the open end of the suction bore, which if bulbed with milk, would result in removal of milk from the bottle when attempting to rapidly fill the same, thus permitting considerable speed-up in the filling of bottles on rapid filling machinery. In another concept of the invention, the angle of the flared portion of the conventional milk filling valve as now used at the dairies is reworked or originally made to be in the range of from about 17 to about 24, preferably in the range of from about 1921; for presently used round glass as well as round necked otherwise square plastic milk bottles, an angle of just about 20 being preferred for the existing equipment. In a still further concept of the invention, the valve stem is provided with fins or vanes which extend from about the flared and tapered end of the valve upwardly through the opening 3,460,590 Patented Aug. 12, 1969 at the base of the storage or supply vessel which moves relative to the valve stem to open and to close the valve, the fins or vanes being of a length along the stems sufiicient to act as centering guides in all positions of the valve stem relative to said opening which moves. In a further concept of the invention, the valve stem in lieu of said fins or vanes, is provided, at a section upwardly of the opening in which the stem is placed, with a centering or guiding means to maintain the flared and angled portion substantially centered'in the bottle neck in open position of the valve thus to assure at all times during filling that the quantities of milk flowing in any sector of the neck of the bottle are about the same as any other sector of said neck, permitting increased rapidity of filling of the bottle without bulbing.

The filling of milk bottles or other bottles for mass distribution must be accomplished very quickly. Fifty to sixty and even up to 140 or more bottles per minute, depending upon bottle size, must sometimes be filled to make an operation satisfactory or commercial. In the filling of such bottles, especially with milk or other liquid which tends to foam, filling is difficult due to the foam forming in the bottle. This foam is sucked from the bottle through the hollow stem of the filler valve and, to the extent that the foam is sucked off, filling is rendered more diflicult and delayed because milk entering the bottle is being removed as foam. The conventional valve used up until now is shaped to provide a frustoconical surface at its lower end onto which and from which the milk flows into the bottle. The angle of this conical surface has been in the range of from about 35 to about 45. There has resulted with the use of a filler valve configuration just described not only considerable foaming but, with bottles of neck internal diameters somewhat larger than those of the conventional glass milk bottles, the formation of a bulb of milk suspended from the bottom end of the filler valves so that the suction has acted to such milk up through the filler valve, and, therefore, from the bottle, considerably impeding desired speed-up in filling rate.

A filler valve as now used in the dairies opens down into the bottle about inch, that is to say, the valve from its closed to its open-most position relative to the opening of the storage vessel has moved downward inch and, accordingly, the milk is flowing initially and momentarily only across the frustoconical surface in the form of a thin film which gradually but rapidly thickness as the valve is opened to its open-most position.

With an angle of the flared and angled valve of the prior art, say 35-45 the milk will now flow down around the valve bottom and tend to bulb over the same with the disadvantages against rapid filling herein detailed.

To more fully understand the operation of the filling machines, a bottle enters upon the machine and makes substantially a circular pathway during which it is filled while being vented. Finally, as the valve is withdrawn from the bottle neck, the level in the bottle is adjusted by virtue of the suction through the axis of the filler valve. Each bottle is lifted into a filling position, the lifting thereof being operative to seal the bottle mouth and to push upwardly a telescopically arranged opening in the storage vessel bottom, thus opening the valve and allowing fluid therefrom to flow into the neck of the bottle.

I have now found by altering the valves of existing machines, e.g., Federal, Cemac, and Cherry-Burrell, to conform to an angle of the invention it is possible to considerably improve the rate and, therefore, the rapidity of filling of milk bottles, both glass and plastic. I have increased the rapidity of filling by 20-25 percent when altering the angle to be just about 20. This has been done with a valve opening /8 inch, the valve having a diameter at its flared portion of inch and the bottles having an internal neck diameter of 1 /2 inch at the valve bottom at maximum diameter of the valve, i.e., inch.

In such operation, the milk flows downwardly along the stem and outwardly radially across the 20 angle surface of the flared portion of the valve, the milk then reaching over to the bottle neck and virtually simultane ously filling the entire neck above the frustoconical surface so that there is virtually no air space above said surface in the bottle neck. Thus, the milk can be regarded as filling into the bottle neck and filling the bottle neck above the angled and flared surface and then flowing down the inside wall of the bottle neck and virtually not at all over any surface of the filler valve which faces downwardly. With such valve the operation is speeded up and 80-90 bottles per minute each containing, when suitably filled, 1 quart of milk can be filled with no unsatisfactory filled bottles coming off the machine. Plastic gallon bottles have been filled at 16-28 per minute. The higher number of bottles in each reported instance was obtained with valves according to the invention which were equipped with the vanes of the invention.

The following table gives examples of operation of the invention.

Bottle made of Number of bottles lilled satisfactorily per minute using angle and vanes of invention Number of bottles filled satisfactorily per minute using angle of invention but not the vanes Name of machine used Revolutions per minute 80 24 G.V. 20 Cherry-Burrell 4% I 9 11% revolutions per minute filling plastic bottles with vanes equipped va ves.

Thus, it is an object of this invention to provide a modified, improved filler valve for filling containers with fluids, e.g., glass and plastic milk bottles. It is another object of the invention to provide an improved filler valve configuration for machines which fill containers and which apply a suction to the container inside during the filling operation. It is a further object of the invention to furnish a valve design which eliminates substantially turbulence, dripping or splashing of fluid being filled into a container. It is a still further object of the invention to provide a valve design which will avoid bulbing yet permit considerably increasing the number of bottles which are filled in unit time period. A further object still of the invention is to provide a valve configuration which avoids return through the suction of the valve of the fluid from the container until the filler valve is being withdrawn from the filled bottle and the filled bottle is being adjusted to a desired level of fill.

Other concepts, objects and the several advantages of the invention are apparent from a study of this disclosure, the drawing and the appended claims.

According to the present invention, there is provided an improved container filler valve of the kind which will fill a container, disposed below a storage vessel, containing the fluid to be filled into said container, by opening the bottom of said vessel and permitting fluid to run down the valve body and onto a flared and angled portion, usually frustoconical in cross section, the improved valve having said flared and angled portion forming an angle with the horizontal in the approximate range of 17-24, preferably 19-21, more preferably just about 20, especially for modification of existing machines.

Also, according to the invention, there is provided a method of filling containers, employing a valve as herein described, which comprises so adjusting the angle of the flared and angled portion or sealing seat thereof, and its diameter relative to the neck diameter of the container to be filled, that the fluid flowing downwardly along and around the valve stem and onto said seat is forced upwardly into the top of the bottle neck so that said neck is substantially completely filled above said seat, thus forming a radial outward flow evenly over said seat and over to the inside wall of said neck so that the fluid flows down the walls thereof into the container bottom without undue turbulence, dripping or formation offoam.

Thus, according to the invention, the sealing against fluid flow can be effected by the flared and angled surface alone or in conjunction with another seal or the seal against fluid flow can be quite apart from said surface which then will merely direct the flow of fluid according to the invention.

Further, and still according to the invention, the container is filled, sealed away from the outside atmosphere except that it communicates with a suction through an axial bore in the valve stem, and the fluid passes downwardly around the stem, across the sealed portion, adjusted and configured as described, and down the wall of the container smoothly and uniformly all around the container or bottle.

Thus, it is a feature of the invention according to which splashing, dripping, etc., are avoided substantially and uniform flow around the bottle wall is obtained by the configuration described because there is at least provided an angle such that the bottle neck is substantially entirely filled.

Still, according to the invention, there is provided a valve according to the invention as described herein, further modified in having vanes or fins extending axially on the valve stem and substantially from a point at the valve seat to a point within the outlet from the storage vessel from which the fluid to be filled into the container is fed, the vanes or fins also extending along diameters or at least essentially radially out to the wall of said outlet to act as a guide to center, and maintain centered at all times, the valve to permit fluid flowing across the valve seat to do so uniformly therearound, as described.

Further, operation according to and/or with the valve of the present invention permits substantially avoiding the dripping or raining down of fluid over the horizontal cross section of the inside of the container, thus substantially eliminating a major cause of foam formation. Also, any air lock as obtained with filler valves in which the valve is off to one side is also eliminated.

In the drawings, FIGURE 1 illustrates a vertical view of the valve mechanism of the invention in open position in place when filling a container, the container and a part of the storage vessel above it being shown in cross section. FIGURE 2 shows the valve and stem of the invention. FIGURE 3 is a view taken from the top end of the stem, i.e., from top to bottom of FIGURE 2. FIGURE 4 is a diagrammatic illustration of a milk filling machine in which the simplicity only one valve is shown to illustrate the position of the valve relative to the overall machine.

Referring now to FIGURE 1, there is shown a bottle 2 being filled from storage vessel 3 with fluid as indicated by the arrows. The valve 4 according to the invention is centered, in this embodiment, by means of vanes 5 in vessel outlet opening 6. In closed position of the valve, seat 7 abuts and seals against bottornmost rim portion, flange or ring 8 of the vessel 3. The angle of seat 7 in this embodiment, which has been operated successfully, in 20. The distance between seat portion 7 taken vertically to ring 8 is inch in full open position. The largest diameter of the valve at seat portion 7 is inch and the container neck is +l /z inch internal diameter. The container is tightly held up against rubber seating pad 9 during filling The bottle is lifted sufficiently that it lifts the inner of the telescopically engaged essentially cylindrical member 11 away from the seat 7. Thus, the lowermost edge rim or ring 8 moves upwardly away from seat 7 allowing fluid to flow. A suction draws air through air vent up to a point above the level of the liquid in vessel 3. Preferably, the liquid level in vessel 3 is maintained substantially constant and the flow of fluid virtually from onset of the opening of the valve is to fill the neck of the container above seat 7 and to keep it filled until the container has been filled. Removal of the valve from the bottle or the bottle from the valve draws 01f excess fluid and tops off to the desired level of fluid in the container. Bulbing below the valve does not occur.

Referring to FIGURE 4, there is shown a valve stem 4, according to the invention, installed in fluid storage vessel 3. A bottle 2, shown broken away to permit viewing a portion of the valve in its neck is lifted into position by stool 13 which is moved by means not shown but well known relative to removable bowl 14. Fluid or milk is fed into vessel 3 at 15. A suction is maintained above the fluid level is vessel 3 by means of a connection 16 to a suction pump 18, in this FIGURE 4, there is shown a rubber bulb or bellows covering sealingly the telescopically engaged mechanism which can be seen in FIGURE 1.

One skilled in the details of the art will understand that the structure of the actual filling machine, the elements of which carry the bottle, place it into position below the pad, lift it upwards into contact with and move upwards the movable bottom portion 11 of the storage vessel, and maintain it there during filling, and keep the storage vessel filled, are here omitted for sake of simplicity. The invention is concerned with the improved valve structure and the operation of a filling machine employing such a valve in a manner as here described.

When viewed in cross section taken at right angles to the longitudinal axis of the valve body, the seat portion of the valve herein described is circular and when viewed in vertical cross section at its diameter the seat portion of the valve is frustoconical. It will be clear to one skilled in the art in possession of this disclosure that the method of the invention involves the use of a valve design which will permit, with static heads and fluids being used, the filling substantially completely of the top of the bottle so that there is an even flow of fluid, say, milk, forced to the sides and away from the bottom of the valve body as described herein. Thus, it is possible for the valve seat portion to have other shapes. For example, when viewed in cross section taken along the axis of the valve body, it may be toroidal, pyramidal or have any other shape so long as the angle and/or shape permits accomplishing the method of the invention. The valve of the invention will have an angle as described herein.

While herein the telescopically engaged, movable, essentially cylindrical element has been shown as acting to permit fluid flow when this inner element is moved upwardly by a container moved thereagainst forcefully by lifting of stool 13, it will be understood that the method and/or valve of the invention are seated if the valve stem also moves to control fluid flow either together with said movable elements or alone.

Reasonable variation and modification are possible within the scope of the foregoing disclosure, the drawings and the appended claims to the invention, the essence of which is that there has been provided an improved or modified valve structure for container or bottle filling machine in which a valve permitting down flow of fluid into a container, usually essentially of a stem-like configuration having a seat portion, and a flared and angled head portion which may encompass said seat portion, and an axial bore for venting air from the container, is provided, the valve seat portion having an angle in the range of approximately 17 to 24 degrees, and in a preferred embodiment the stem portion having centering or guiding vanes or fins substantially as described, and that, as a result, there has been provided a method which comprises filling a container with such kind of valve so configured and/or angled at its flared and angled portion that the fluid flowing downwardly around its stern and onto its flared portion will be caused to fill the neck of the container above said portion and cause flow of the fluid down the neck wall and container side wall as described herein.

I claim:

1. A method for filling a bottle or container with a fluid contained in a storage vessel which comprises passing said fluid from said vessel and filling therewith a container through a discharge conduit containing a valve having a movable stem, said stem having a flared and angled portion at the bottom thereof, extending beyond the discharge end of said discharge conduit so that when said discharge conduit is in a sealing engagement with a container, said stem penetrates into said container, said stem having a sealing portion which in closed position of said valve is in sealing engagement with said conduit and in open position allows downward flow of the fluid around the said stem, in closed position the valve preventing flow through said discharge conduit, said stem being hollow therethrough to permit venting of the container into said vessel, the flared and angled portion of the stem being so angled that fluid passing downwardly thereonto and into the neck of a container into which the said flared and angled portion of said stem penetrates will, in open position of the valve, cause the fluid to fill into the neck of the container in a manner to force the fluid upwardly into the neck of the container substantially completely filling said neck with said fluid and forcing said fluid onto and around the wall of said neck, thus flowing the fluid uniformly downwardly around the wall of the container substantially without splashing, dripping, or foaming, permitting the container to be suitably filled to a desired level, placing said container into sealing engagement with said discharge conduit, opening said valve thus placing said container into open fluid communication with the interior of said vessel at a point in said vessel from which fluid in said vessel can be discharged into said container and so that said stem penetrates into the neck of said container and thus filling said container.

2. A method according to claim 1 wherein the container being filled is a milk container or bottle having a neck having a circular cross section and the stem portion which is flared and angled has an angle with respect to the horizontal in the range of approximately 17 to 24.

3. A method according to claim 2 wherein the discharge conduit containing the valve moves slidingly and the valve stem is equipped with guiding vanesor fins engaging said conduit.

4. A method according to claim 3 wherein the stem body is equipped with vanes running or extending substantially rectilinearly and longitudinally of the stem from a point at the flared and angled portion to a point well within the discharge conduit in which the valve stem is contained.

5. A method according to claim 1 wherein said storage vessel is maintained under a reduced pressure thus to rapidly evacuate air from said container thus to assist to better and more rapidly fill said container.

6. A valve mechanism for filling a container with fluid comprising a discharge conduit adapted to be affixed into open communication with a vessel containing said fluid to permit said fluid to flow through said conduit, said conduit containing a valve having a movable stem, said stem having a flared and angled portion at the: bottom thereof, extending beyond the discharge end of said discharge conduit so that when said discharge conduit is in a sealing engagement with a container said stem penetrates into said container, said stem having a sealing portion which in closed position of said valve is in sealing engagement with said conduit and in open position allows downward flow of the fluid around said stem, in closed position the valve preventing flow through said discharge conduit, said stern having a hollow bore therethrough to permit venting of a container to be, filled therethrough into the vessel to which said discharge conduit containing said valve is afiixed in open communication, the flared. and angled portion of the stem being so angled that fluid passing downwardly thereonto and into the neck of a container into which the said flared and angled portion of said stem penetrates will, in open position of the valve cause the fluid to fill into the neck of the container in a manner to force the fluid upwardly into the neck of the container substantially completely filling said neck with said fluid and forcing said fluid onto and around the wall of said neck, thus flowing the fluid uniformly downwardly around the wall of the container substantially without splashing, dripping or foaming.

7. A valve mechanism according to claim 6 in which the discharge conduit is adapted to fit into a container neck opening having a circular cross-section and the stem portion which is flared and angled has an angle with respect to the horizontal in the range of approximately 1724.

8. A valve mechanism according to claim 7 wherein the stern body is equipped with vanes running or extending substantially rectilinearly longitudinally of the stem 20 from a point at the flared and angled portion to a point well within the discharge conduit in which the valve stem is contained.

9. A valve mechanism according to claim 7 wherein the flared and angled portion of the stem is frustoconical and has an angle with respect to the horizontal of just about 20.

10. A valve mechanism according to claim 6 wherein the opening of the valve is eflected by an upwardly moving discharge conduit member which in closed condition of the valve is in sealing engagement with a sealing portion of said stem.

11. A valve according to claim 6 wherein the opening of the valve is elfected by at least a downward movement of said stem.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,550,726 8/1925 Larsen 141--295 2,325,419 7/1943 Minard 141286 FOREIGN PATENTS 499,200 6/ 1930 Germany.

HOUSTON S. BELL, JR., Primary Examiner US. Cl. X.R. 

